Archive for December, 2017

Earlier this month, someone called the Kauai Hawaiian Monk Seal Hui hotline to report a green seal hauled out on the east side. It was R7AA. The next day, the same seal was reported “very green” and with a “transmitter.” (You may recall R7AA was flipper-tagged in September and outfitted with a dive recorder. That was the “transmitter” on her back.) But this report also included “something hanging from the seal’s mouth.” Kindly, the caller sent photos. Shortly thereafter, the dispatcher with the Kauai Police Department also received a call and report of a hooked seal. More photos were submitted. While no hook was seen in any of the photos, our Kauai team immediately responded.

What they found was, indeed, a very green seal sporting a transmitter. And no hook. But she did have gouges to both her upper and lower lips and a flap of skin hanging from the right side of her mouth and was given a antibiotic injection by way of a pole syringe.

That was last weekend. In the week since, R7AA has been sighted on three more occasions. The skin flap is gone. Her wound is healing. And she’s just started to molt around her flippers.

For now, she’s still–appropriately for the holiday–green.

This is a good example of the efforts of many people and agencies coming together to aid one in need, our endangered Hawaiian monk seals.

On July 19, 2017, our second pup of the year was tagged RJ36 (born to RK30) at his natal birth site along a stretch of Napali Coast. But he wasn’t officially re-sighted again until late in the afternoon last week Tuesday when a field biologist at Pacific Missile Range Facility reported two seals had hauled out along Kauai’s southwestern shore. One was R8HY and the other turned out to be RJ36. The field biologist observed some unusual scars just forward of the weaner’s left fore flipper and across his dorsal above his rear flippers.

After reviewing photos of RJ36 with the Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program (HMSRP), the consensus is RJ36 had an encounter with a shark. The good news is RJ36 appears to be in good health. His wounds have healed, and he’s looking nice and plump.

In the Main Hawaiian Islands, HMSRP does not rank sharks as a major threat to monk seal survival. According to HMSRP, there have been no documented cases of mortality from sharks in the Main Hawaiian Islands. However, that doesn’t mean they haven’t happened, as those events probably go completely undetected.

RJ36 isn’t Kauai’s only known seal with suspected shark encounters.

There’s also RJ36’s mom, RK30, who was first sighted as an adult by the HMSRP in 2005, already with what’s possibly a scar from a shark bite. She also has a dozen or more cookie cutter shark scars dotting her body.

More recently, another mature female RK13 was sighted in 2011 with two apparent shark wounds–one above her left fore flipper and the other on her right ventral side. We reported on it here. She was regularly sighted along Kapaa’s canals as she recovered from her injuries. She was also pregnant at the time but eventually gave birth to a healthy pup, RL10. Then, in May of this year, we reported here that RK13 was sighted with an unsightly wound to her nares (nostrils), possibly due to a shark bite. Monk seals have an amazing ability to heal themselves through a process called “tissue granulation,” and RK13’s wound healed nicely.

There are two other known seals with shark wounds. RH92 was a newly weaned pup in 2016 when she turned up with a fresh and deep cookie cutter shark wound on her head.

R1KY has a large shark bite scar below her right fore flipper, most visible on her dorsal side.

It’s impossible to know for sure that all these scars are due to sharks and specifically what kind of shark; however, three shark species are common suspects:

Tiger: Considered an apex predator, Tiger sharks grow to lengths of 18 feet and longer, wearing up to 2,000 pounds. This shark inhabits coastal and pelagic waters. Tiger sharks mature slowly and pup in litters of 35 to 55 individuals. Their name comes from the dark, vertical stripes that, interestingly, lighten in color as they age. They can live 30 to 40 years. They eat a wide variety of marine animals and carrion and have been called, “the garbage can of the sea.”

Cookiecutter: The cookiecutter shark, also called the cigar shark, lives in warm, oceanic waters worldwide and particularly near islands. Its common name comes from the cookie cutter-like wounds it leaves in its prey. It lives at depths of 3,200 feet during the day but migrates up the water column at night to feed. To feed, the fish uses its suction cup-like lips to attach itself onto prey. Then, it spins its body, using the row of serrated teeth on its lower jaw to remove a plug of flesh, leaving behind crater-like wounds that are two inches across and approximately two-and-a-half inches deep.

Galapagos: This shark grows to 10 feet in length and generally eats bottom fishes and cephalopods. In the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, where approximately 85 percent of the Hawaiian monk seal species lives, Galapagos sharks have been recorded predating on monk seal pups in nearshore waters around French Frigate Shoals. It’s hypothesized that a small group of sharks are involved in this behavior. You can read more about this unusual mortality event and mitigation efforts here.

Not all appearances of sharks spell trouble for monk seals, as this video from National Geographic’s CritterCam shows. At 1:50, you’ll see sharks in the foreground but no interaction between the species. And at 4:42, you’ll see the Crittercam-toting monk seal chase off a couple reef sharks.

In November, the Kauai team logged 239 seal sightings. This included 35 individually identified seals. Here’s a look at how the 239 number compares to other months.

November: 239
October: 225
September: 354
August: 236
July: 335

As a reminder, there are numerous reasons that can effect the number of reported seal sightings. Two big ones are the availability of our steadfast volunteers taking their daily beach walks, and the presence of moms with pups and the subsequent “pup sitting” we do. Of course, the seals themselves play a factor in this, too. Maybe there’s some seasonality in foraging that takes them to remote areas of the island where we don’t see them. That’s the thing with animals that spend the majority of their lives at sea–we don’t quite know.

Other November news to note:

Seal activity continues around Poipu Beach Park with seals swimming among swimmers, snorkelers and the water aerobics class and hauling out on the beach amidst beach-goers. Our advice continues to be for everyone involved to give the animal its space and never approach, touch, harass, disturb it. Remember: Monk seals are wild animals; let’s keep them that way.

One additional monk seal received its morbillivirus vaccination in November. This virus, similar to distemper in dogs, has not infected the monk seal species. But in a proactive effort to combat an outbreak, the Hawaiian Monk Seal Science Program started vaccinating seals last year. To learn more about the threat of morbillivirus, read this Smithsonian article.

As a follow up to last week’s post on molting, it appears that RH38 has completed her molt. She’s lost the green and is back to sporting a sleek silvery coat. She’s also starting to navigate along the North Shore. This is good news, because RH38 spent several weeks in late summer at Ke Kai Ola being treated for a high load of intestinal parasites right as she was entering her pre-molt phase. RH38’s moved some 15 miles along the coast from where she was released back into the wild. It’s good too see RH38 moving about again like a healthy wild seal.

Now, it’s important RH38 remain a normal wild seal. That is, that she doesn’t habituate to humans and human things like boats and harbors and surfboards. During RH38’s time in rehab, her caregivers at Ke Kai Ola were careful to prevent this, but the fact remains that she spent several weeks around humans. Hopefully, RH38 does not look favorably upon that experience and will go out of her way to avoid humans.

This is where you can help. If you see RH38 interacting with people on the beach, in the water, around boats, near harbors, please let us know at 808-651-7668.